Five "Practically Perfect" reasons to see Mary Poppins in the West End

We asked Zizi Strallen to give us five reasons to be excited for the return of Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre

Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's magical musical Mary Poppins flies into the Prince Edward Theatre this October, and we are very excited. We spoke to Mary Poppins herself, played by the glorious Zizi Strallen, to find out why she thinks you need to "Step in Time" and book your tickets to see this dazzling production now.

1. The timeless music

The songs in Mary Poppins by the Sherman Brothers are some of the most beautiful and catchy tunes ever written: "A Spoonful of Sugar", "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", "Feed the Birds", "Step in Time" etc. The added bonus about this production is you also get astonishingly good tunes from Stiles and Drewe: "Practically Perfect", "Anything Can Happen", "Being Mrs Banks", "Brimstone and Treacle" and more. They fit excellently into the story and sound like they should've been in the film the whole time.

2. The story

This story tells the audience to love one another and look out for each other, especially when it comes to family and the people closest to you. Everyone goes through difficult times in life and Mary Poppins shows children that they can look after their parents too, not just the other way around.

3. The magic

I don't know many other shows that can give you hat-stands and floor lamps coming out of a carpet bag as well as flying! Mary Poppins will make you believe that magic is real and will leave you questioning what you just saw, in the best way.

4. The choreography

The choreography in Mary Poppins, by the brilliant Matthew Bourne and Stephen Mear, is so varied in styles and keeps you entertained for the duration of the story. One of my personal favourites is "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", when the letters are spelled out by everyone's bodies. I always see audience members trying to emulate it on their way out and I love it.

5. The permission to love yourself

One of the things I love most about Mary Poppins is her confidence within herself. She doesn't claim to be perfect, she says she's practically perfect, recognising she has room to grow, but she's totally happy with who she is and what she stands for. In this day and age with social media, we're constantly looking at our imperfections and comparing ourselves to others. Mary is happy with her imperfections and also her perfections and everyone around her loves her for it.